Quinquagesima Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 18:31-43
In Christ Jesus, who is patient and kind, ever ready to show mercy in our suffering and helplessness, dear fellow redeemed:
How can you tell if you love someone, and how can you tell if they love you? Is it by how they look? This might be the reason for an initial attraction. A girl thinks a boy is handsome, or a boy thinks a girl is pretty. That could be the beginning of a crush—what is sometimes called “love at first sight”—, but that’s not exactly love. Love is much deeper than physical appearance or a feeling of attraction. And love is more than romantic or flattering words.
Today’s Epistle Lesson from 1 Corinthians 13 describes love as selfless action: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (vv. 4-6). “Love at first sight” is more about what you could do for me. Love that flows from Jesus is about what I can do for you.
And what did Jesus say He would do for others? He said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise.” The disciples did not hear this as love. They heard it as suffering and especially as loss—their loss. They had big plans for Jesus and for themselves as His closest associates. Those plans did not include Jesus’ suffering and death.
Instead of letting Jesus’ plan and promise “sink into [their] ears” (Luk. 9:44), they insisted on their own way. And if they had gotten their way, they might have enjoyed more earthly glory, but neither they nor we would have a Savior. Jesus’ love for sinners compelled Him toward suffering and the cross. Nobody forced Him to go to Jerusalem; He went willingly.
That’s another quality of godly love—it can’t be forced. When love is a “have to,” it is motivated by the Law. When love is a “get to,” it is motivated by the Gospel. The Law says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and mind… and your neighbor as yourself” (Mat. 22:37,39). But only the Gospel can move our hearts to show this love gladly and freely. Only when we have been brought to faith by the Holy Spirit, can we bear the fruit of love toward others.
Jesus was acting out of love when He explained what He would do in Jerusalem. He was going there to pay for the sins of all people of all time, even though He had never done any wrong. This was the ultimate act of love, accepting the eternal punishment that everyone else deserved. The disciples in their selfishness would have stopped Him from going to do this, but His love for them and us compelled Him forward.
As He made His way toward Jerusalem, a large crowd went with Him. It was shortly before this that Jesus had raised His friend Lazarus from the dead, and He continued to do other miracles besides. The reports of His miraculous power traveled in every direction, and they also reached the ears of a blind man who lived in or near the town of Jericho in Judea. He was begging by the road outside of town when the crowd passed by with Jesus. As soon as he learned that Jesus was near, he began to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The members of the crowd had referred to Him as “Jesus of Nazareth,” but the blind man called him “Jesus, Son of David.” This tells us that from the reports he heard about Jesus, he was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior long-promised to Israel. Though he could not see physically, the blind man “saw” Jesus by faith. He believed what He had heard about Him. He is a wonderful example of what Jesus later said to His disciple Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Joh. 20:29).
This man’s faith shines the more brightly when we think about his situation. He was blind and probably had been his whole life. He had no source of income, so he was forced to beg on the side of the road. If you were in his shoes (assuming he had any), would you be more likely to complain about what God wasn’t doing for you or cling to His promises? Trust Him to provide for you or turn away from Him?
Jesus heard the blind man’s cry for mercy, just as He hears yours. Psalm 34 says, “The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry” (v. 15, NKJV). Perhaps no one else knows your particular struggle, your pain, how helpless you sometimes feel. But He does. For you, He was “mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.” He was treated like the blind beggar on the side of the road that no one wanted to look at or listen to. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).
He endured all this trouble and suffering, so you would have hope in your trouble and suffering. Maybe you have been hurt or harmed by those who were supposed to love you. Maybe you feel like your efforts to love have been thrown back in your face. That is a lonely place to be in, like being stuck by yourself in the darkness.
Jesus does not leave you alone. He does not withhold His mercy from you. Look how personally He dealt with the blind man. “Bring him here to Me,” He said. Then He asked the blind man this grace-filled question: “What do you want Me to do for you?” This is how Jesus invites you to pray. He says, “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luk. 11:9). No problem is too big or too small for Him. No request is too hard. You don’t always know what is best for yourself, but He does, and He wants you to bring your petitions to Him.
The blind man said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” He said this about his physical sight, but we say the same about our faith. The less we hear Jesus’ Word, the less clear His love for us is. The more we hear His Word, the clearer He is to our faith. Our sinful flesh and the temptations of the world and the devil cloud our faith. We get to thinking too much about human glory like the disciples did. We become bitter dwelling on what we should have received but didn’t. But getting exactly what we want when we want it is not the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus is.
That’s another lesson the blind man teaches us. If you had been blind your whole life and could suddenly see, what would you do? Where would you go? This is what the formerly blind man did: he “followed [Jesus], glorifying God.” Whether physically blind or seeing, what mattered most was that this man believed in Jesus. Jesus said as much, “your faith has made you well.”
When we come to church, one of the first things we do is confess our sins. We acknowledge that our spiritual vision is not as sharp as it should be. Our love is lacking. Our faith is weak. As we confess, we say with the blind man, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” “Let Your mercy be upon me. Let me see Your love. Forgive me all my sins. Show me the light of Your grace.” And Jesus says through the mouth of the pastor, “I forgive you all your sins. Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.”
The faith that you have, that the Holy Spirit worked in you through the powerful Word, is what connects you to the love of God in Christ Jesus. Faith sees Jesus “mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon,” flogged, and nailed to a cross and says, “Jesus did that to redeem me.” Faith hears Jesus cry, “It is finished!” and says, “He finished the work for me to win my salvation.” Faith sees the empty tomb on Easter Sunday morning and declares, “Jesus conquered death for me.”
Jesus did more than tell you He loves you. He showed it. And He keeps showing it by calling you back to the grace of your Baptism by which He joined you to Him, by filling you with comfort through His Word of absolution, and by strengthening you through the Supper of His holy body and blood. He is not about to pass you by, especially in your times of greatest suffering and need. Whether you are in Jerico, Iowa, or Jericho in the Middle East, He comes to you in love through His Holy Word.
We won’t fully understand the extent of His love in this life. Our sinful flesh keeps us from seeing it in all its “breadth and length and height and depth” (Eph. 3:18). But the day will come when we will see Jesus as He is. Like the blind man who had the shadows lifted from his sight, we will look upon Jesus in His glory and see perfect love embodied in Him. 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter, describes how this will be: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (v. 12).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Jesus Healing the Blind in Jericho,” Netherlands 1470s)
Sexagesima Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 8:4-15
In Christ Jesus, who promises all who abide in His Word that they are His disciples, set free from sin, death, and every lie of the devil (Joh. 8:31-32), dear fellow redeemed:
If we studied Jesus’ parable by itself without the interpretation He gave, we would miss the point of the whole thing. We might first of all question the method of the farmer who sowed the seed. Couldn’t he be a little more precise about where the seed was broadcast? Three quarters of the seed fell where it was unable the survive and thrive—the hard path, the rocky ground, and the patch of thorns. Only one quarter fell into the good soul, grew up, and yielded fruit. We might conclude that it was the farmer’s fault that the seed did not do better.
Or perhaps we would blame the difficult conditions for growing seed. With all the birds flying around, with all the rocks, and with all the thorns, what chance could the seed have? It seems that the seed was destined to fail. Or possibly some would also criticize the seed. If the seed were better engineered to handle the challenging conditions, a crop could grow even there.
But Jesus does not interpret the parable in this way. His focus is not on the one who scattered the seed, the challenging conditions, or the seed itself. His focus is on the people who hear His words. As He spoke the words of the parable, He called out to everyone around Him, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” That should have told the people that Jesus wanted them to learn something from His words, something that applied to their faith and salvation. But what were they supposed to learn? Were they the farmers? Were they the seed? Were they the birds, the bad ground, or the good ground?
Jesus’ disciples were not sure themselves, but they knew this was important. They asked Him what the parable meant. We learn to ask the same question from our study of the Catechism. We recite something from the Bible like the Ten Commandments, and we ask after each one: “What does this mean?” We don’t just want to know the words, we want to understand them. We want to know how they apply to our lives. We want to meditate on what God is saying and receive the rich blessings He wants to give.
But many don’t take the time to dig into the Word like this. They have a basic understanding of who God is and what Jesus has done, but they don’t go any further. They think they know as much as they need. They don’t have any strong desire to learn more.
This is something like people who have never watched a football game before. They turn it on and figure out that the players with light stretchy pants are going against the players with dark stretchy pants. They both want to play with the same ball. Sometimes they throw it, sometimes they kick it, and sometimes they steal it. They seem to want to punish one another. That kind of watching might entertain to some extent. But the game means a lot more when you know the strengths and weaknesses of each player, and how the offense and defense are looking for leverage against each other.
The more understanding you have, the more appreciation you have. Isn’t that how love develops between a young man and a young woman? They want to spend time with each other, learn about one another’s likes and dislikes, talk about their difficulties and their dreams. You and I won’t have a love for God’s Word unless we spend time with God’s Word, learning what He has done for us and how He wants us to live, sharing our problems with Him through prayer and hearing about the plans He has for us.
So we don’t read the Bible like an ancient history book, as though it’s only about things long past. We don’t read it like an instruction book that we can set aside as soon as we know the rules. We don’t read it like a children’s book either, looking only for a cute story or a simple message. We take the Bible in our hands and soak it in line by line like the love letter that it is. We pour over it as we would the smallest details on a treasure map. We read a passage and then read it again and again, absorbing the words, chewing on them.
I heard about one Christian who writes a new Bible passage on a small piece of paper every day and pulls it out of his pocket throughout the day to keep it in his head. Others read a portion from their Bible each day. They have maybe read the Bible multiple times and are constantly surprised by what they didn’t notice before. There is no right or wrong way to meditate on the Word of God, as long as we are letting His Word speak for itself. We don’t come up with our own unique interpretations of His Word. We read a passage in its context; we compare one passage with another, this part with that part, and the interpretation becomes clear.
In today’s reading, Jesus provides the interpretation for His own parable. After His disciples asked, “What does this mean?” Jesus explained how to understand and apply each part. He did not identify the farmer who sowed the seed, so that is not a detail we need to explore. The seed is the Word of God. And all the types of ground—the hard path, the rocky ground, the patch of thorns—are those who hear the Word.
The seed was the same wherever it fell; all hear the same powerful Word of God’s grace. This shows how God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1Ti. 2:4). He generously broadcasts His Word, so that it is heard by people who might not seem to be good soil for the Word. But sometimes they are! Since we do not know in whom the Lord will work faith, our mission as members of His Church is to “proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mar. 16:15), to “Go… and make disciples of all nations” (Mat. 28:18).
Since we are all born with the same original sin, none of us is a naturally “good” candidate to hear His Word and believe. Even we who believe need encouragement to “hold fast” His Word because we are always tempted to loosen our grip, to let other things become more important. When Jesus describes the reasons people lose faith, He is not providing a list of excuses. He is not telling us why some are justified in rejecting what they have heard.
The devil snatches the Word from some hearts because the people who hear pursue temptation instead of faithfulness. The seed in the rocky soil does not take root because some turn away from God in times of testing and difficulty instead of turning toward Him. The seed choked by thorns is when priority is given to “the cares and riches and pleasures of life,” when faith is taken for granted instead of being fortified and strengthened.
These things can happen to any of us, and at various points in our life, they probably have. But our Lord is merciful. When He sows His Word, He does not snatch it away from us. He does not withhold the moisture of His “living water” so that our faith cannot sink down roots. He does not send thorny trials to choke our faith. It’s just the opposite: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” (Isa. 42:3).
He wants you to hear His holy, soul-saving Word. He wants you to hear the message again and again that He loves you—even weak, unworthy you. He wants His sweet words of absolution to sink into your ears and heart, that He forgives every single one of your sins. He wants you to be confident that “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa. 1:18). He wants to assure you that a place is prepared for you in His kingdom, and that He will come back in glory to take you there.
When you receive these words in faith, trusting His gracious promises, gaining the comfort He wants you to have, this is the “good soil” in which His Word does powerful work. The more we hear the Word, the better and more fruitful becomes the soil of our hearts. You have seen this in your own life, that difficulties you could not have managed on your own, God gave you the strength for. People you could not have forgiven on your own, God moved you to forgive.
The Word of God is “living and active” (Heb. 4:12). It does not return to Him empty but accomplishes what He wills (Isa. 55:11). His Word creates the faith and strengthens the faith that bears fruit toward the people around us—the good fruit of love, kindness, faithfulness, patience (Gal. 5:22-23)—in our homes, our church, and our community.
Today’s parable is Jesus’ word to us. His message rings out even to the other side of the world and thousands of years after He originally spoke it: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” And when we listen, when we treasure up all these things and ponder them in our hearts (Luk. 2:19), Jesus leans toward us and says, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God.” To you! To know the secrets of the kingdom of God!
The secrets are that you are not meant for this world; you are meant for something much greater. You are not destined to die and remain dead; you are destined to live. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Joh. 3:17). Jesus came to save you, and He wants you to know it.
Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word
We are gathered all to hear Thee;
Let our hearts and souls be stirred
Now to seek and love and fear Thee,
By Thy teachings, sweet and holy,
Drawn from earth to love Thee solely. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #1, v. 1)
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Hortus Diliciarum, a book compiled by Herrad of Landsberg in the 12th century)
Septuagesima Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 20:1-16
In Christ Jesus, who made Himself last, suffering the punishment for all our sins, so we would be justified before God, receiving the great riches of His grace, dear fellow redeemed:
In a prosperous country like ours which does not require that everyone has the same amount of money or possessions, it is natural for us to compare what we have with what others have. We might drive through town and admire some large and beautiful homes, or we might think of the high-paying jobs some of our neighbors have, and we might wonder: “Why don’t I have more than I do?” Or, “Why have they received so much?”
These questions have crossed each of our minds. We might feel like we have worked hard, been honest and reliable; we’ve put in our time. Then we look at others who have not worked as hard, who have been willing to compromise morally and ethically, who in our estimation have not deserved the promotions or raises they have gotten. And we wonder why this has happened to us. Should we have looked out for ourselves more and sacrificed less? Or did we just pick the wrong job and put in our time at the wrong place?
It is thoughts like these that lurk in the background of today’s Holy Gospel. A landowner hires laborers for his vineyard throughout the day. The ones hired early in the morning agreed to work for a denarius. They were not being manipulated or cheated. It was a fair wage for the work they were asked to do. The workers hired at various points after that were not told what they would receive. They were promised by the owner, “whatever is right I will give you.” And they went to work, happy to be employed.
The problem came at the end of the day when it was time for the workers to receive their wages. The ones hired last who only worked one hour were sent through the line first, and they received a denarius. They couldn’t believe it! What a gift! When the ones hired first came through the line, they received the same pay—one denarius. They couldn’t believe it! How unfair! They immediately grumbled against the landowner: “Those workers don’t deserve what you gave them! We deserve to have more!”
The sins behind these statements are jealousy and a judgmental attitude. Jealousy or envy are when you see what someone else has, and you want it for yourself. It could be someone else’s property. It could be someone else’s possessions. It could be someone else’s popularity. It could be someone else’s spouse or family. There is nothing wrong with admiration; we can be impressed by what others have. But jealousy is the step forward into sin. It is what the Ninth and Tenth Commandments are about: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.” And, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, workers, animals, or anything that is his.”
This sinful desire happens when we are discontent with what we have. That discontentment makes just about everything else around us look better. So if you are discontent about your job, just about every other job looks better. If you are discontent with your spouse or your family, just about every other spouse and family looks better. Giving way to these jealous thoughts opens the door to more sin. Sinful thoughts turn into sinful actions.
Closely related to jealousy is a judgmental attitude. When we sinfully desire what others have, we also think of reasons why they don’t deserve to have it. We say, “They haven’t worked as hard as I have.” Or, “He is so stupid and doesn’t have any real talent. What does the boss see in him?” Or, “She only got this job because of who she knows.” Or, “They don’t appreciate what they have like I would.” The more we can lower or cut down the people that we see as our opponents or enemies, the more we raise ourselves up.
The men who worked all day made this sort of judgment: “These last worked only one hour—hardly at all!—, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. They don’t deserve what they received; we deserve way more!” The landowner replied with these points: 1) He gave the workers exactly what they agreed to work for, and 2) he has the right to pay the other workers the wages he chose to give. Then he called out the sin of the grumblers with the question: “Or do you begrudge my generosity?”—literally, “Is your eye evil (or envious) because I am good?”
The same question is set before us: Do we begrudge the Lord’s generosity to our neighbors? Do we think we haven’t gotten our “fair shake”? But how do we come to these conclusions? Who’s to say what we really do deserve? Who’s to say that we should receive something more or something different than what God has given us? In his First Letter to Timothy, St. Paul wrote, “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (6:6-8).
Contentment is elusive. It always seems just out of reach. Others seem to have it, but not us. Except that contentment can’t be found in earthly things, in earthly success, or in earthly happiness. This is one of the devil’s tricks. The all-day workers in the vineyard wouldn’t have been any better off if they received twice as much money as the one-hour workers. The point of the parable is that contentment is not found in what we do—the energy we expend, the hours we put in, the amount we earn. Contentment is found in what God has done for us.
What we have done is so small, so insignificant, in the grand scheme of God’s kingdom. We think of ourselves as the ones who have worked so hard, “who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But we should think of ourselves as those who often stood idle in the marketplace, who did not do the work we were called to do until the opportunity had almost passed us by.
By viewing our work in this way, we can only conclude that the wages we have received from God are not so much earned wages as they are gift. The laborers who worked one hour knew they did not deserve a full day’s wage. The knew this was a gift of the landowner’s generosity and grace. Far from his being indebted to them (like the other workers were trying to argue), they knew they were indebted to him.
This is how it is with our salvation. To earn our own salvation, we would have to be perfect children of God, perfect workers in His vineyard, perfect neighbors to those around us. This is what His Law requires. Since we have not met this standard, we have failed, and God owes us nothing. Romans 3:23 states the matter plainly: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
The very next verse tells us that since we cannot save ourselves from these sins, God does the saving. It says that just as “all have sinned,” so all “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” We have often been jealous and judgmental toward others. This verse tells us that we are “justified” by God. To be justified means that God declares us righteous, “not guilty,” because Jesus kept the Law of God for us and suffered the punishment for all of our sin.
The justification of God requires nothing of you and gives everything to you. Romans 4:5 says, “And to the one who does not work—who does not trust in his own works for salvation—but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Whom does God justify, pronounce righteous? The inspired Word of God tells us that He “justifies the ungodly.” He justifies the ungodly, so that they become godly. He justifies the unrighteous, so that they are declared righteous.
What you could not do for yourself, Jesus has done for you. You could not keep God’s holy Law, so Jesus kept His Law for you. You could not pay for your sins, so Jesus paid the debt for you. You could not earn your way to heaven, so Jesus earned heaven for you. It is He who bore “the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” He took the burden of God’s wrath for your sins and endured the scorching heat of hell, so that you would be saved.
You Are Justified by God’s Grace as a Gift. Not only has He declared you right with Him because of what Jesus has done, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, He has given you the faith to believe this. Ephesians 2:8-9 says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
When you keep your eyes on Jesus, you see that you have everything you need. You might not have great riches or renown in this life. You might feel like many wonderful things have passed you by. But you have Jesus. You have the priceless Treasure that makes every worldly thing look so small and insignificant. You have the joy of knowing that He chose you to work in His vineyard. He chose you to receive His gracious gifts. He chose you who should be last to be first.
So we set aside our grumbling, we repent of our discontentment, and we receive His gifts with thankful hearts, faithful diligence, and a joyful hope in what He promises. The great hymnwriter put it so well:
The world may hold
Her wealth and gold;
But thou, my heart, keep Christ as thy true Treasure.
To Him hold fast
Until at last
A crown be thine and honor in full measure. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #161, v. 6)
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from 11th century Byzantine manuscript of laborers working in the vineyard [lower portion] and receiving their denarius [upper portion])
The Baptism of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Exodus 11:1, 12:21-30
In Christ Jesus, whose blood cleansed us from all our sins and reconciled us to God, so that we would be saved from destruction, dear fellow redeemed:
God turned all of Egypt’s water to blood, but Pharaoh wouldn’t let the people of Israel go. Then God sent frogs and gnats and flies, but Pharaoh wouldn’t budge. Then He sent a disease on Egypt’s livestock, boils on Egypt’s people, and destructive hail throughout the land. Still, Pharaoh said no. God sent locusts that devoured every green plant, and then caused a deep darkness to fall on the land for three days. Through each of these nine plagues, the book of Exodus says first that Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He did this to show Egypt and all other nations that He was the LORD (Exo. 10:2). He would free His people, the Israelites, from slavery.
They weren’t always slaves. You remember that Joseph brought his father and brothers to Egypt during a time of famine. When they came with their families, there were seventy of them. But over a period of several hundred years, the people had multiplied greatly, and the Pharaohs in power no longer knew about Joseph. They saw the Israelite people as a threat, so they enslaved them. When the people continued to expand, the Pharaoh ordered all Israelite baby boys to be killed. It was a horrible time for God’s people.
But the LORD heard their groaning. He saw their suffering. He hadn’t forgotten them (Exo. 2:24-25). He raised up an unlikely deliverer, eighty-year-old Moses, to lead them out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses and his brother Aaron delivered the message to Pharaoh that he was to let the Israelites go to worship the LORD in the wilderness. When Pharaoh refused, the plagues commenced and continued.
That brings us to the final and decisive plague which today’s reading describes. Before He sent the plague, God gave instructions for how His people were to be protected. He didn’t give them armor or put a force field around them. He didn’t give them supernatural powers to defend themselves. He told them that their salvation would come through a lamb.
Each household was to select a lamb “without blemish, a male a year old” (Exo. 12:5). They were to wait four days and then kill the lamb at twilight. They were directed to put some of the lamb’s blood on the lintels and doorposts of their homes, eat the meat roasted over a fire with unleavened bread on the side, and prepare to march into the wilderness. The Israelites did this. They killed the lambs, painted the blood outside their doors, ate the meat, and waited with belts fastened, sandals on, and staffs in hand.
At midnight, the LORD did what He said. He struck down all the firstborn sons in Egypt in all the homes that had no blood on the doorposts. The LORD had told His people, “The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt” (Exo. 12:13). This is where the term “Passover” comes from—the LORD passed over the homes marked by the blood of the lamb. In this way, the people of Israel were saved and set apart from all other nations. They were purchased by God from their slavery in Egypt with blood.
This purchasing with the blood of the lamb was a “type” or a shadow of what God promised to do for all sinners through His Son. 1 Peter 1 says, “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (vv. 18-19). This is why John, after seeing the Holy Spirit descend on Him and hearing the words of the Father about Him, pointed to Jesus and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Joh. 1:29).
Jesus’ Baptism marked Him as the Christ, the anointed Son of God. It was the beginning of His public work. No more quiet service to His parents in Nazareth, where probably no one pegged Him as the next great rabbi or a great prophet. Now He began to teach, preach, and heal. He gathered His disciples. He traveled from place to place. And finally He set His face to go to Jerusalem, where this spotless Lamb would be bound, nailed to a cross, and die before the setting of the sun on that Passover day.
Just as the blood of the Passover lamb saved the people of Israel from death and delivered them from slavery, so the blood of Jesus has done the same for you. His blood set you free from the grip of the devil; he can no longer accuse and torment you for your sins because your sins were all atoned for by Jesus. You are not a slave to sin because you have been purchased and won by Jesus’ blood. Eternal punishment and death in hell must pass over you because Jesus saved you.
But how can you be sure about this? Doubts always creep in. What if the sins you have committed, either for their frequency or for their repulsiveness, disqualify you from receiving God’s grace? What if your faith is not true enough? What if your heart is not pure enough? The Israelites could point to the blood on their doorposts: “That made the difference! That’s why we are saved!” What can you point to?
Some people try to point to their good works, but those cannot save them. Some point to their good intentions – “My life may not look great, but God knows I tried”—that won’t save anyone either. If you point to anything you do, you will always have doubts. Your thoughts, words, and actions have never been perfectly pure, and as long as you live in this fallen world, they never will be.
And that is why you take comfort, not in what you have done, but in what God has done for you. God the Father sent His Son to be your Passover Lamb, to wash you clean of all your sin by shedding His precious blood. Jesus willingly went to the cross for you. He suffered and died there for you. And to make sure you know that He did this for you, He has given you a visible sign, the holy Sacrament of water and the Word.
Your Baptism is like the Israelites’ blood on the doorposts. The blood marked them as God’s own children. Baptism marks you as a child of God. When you were baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” God put His name on you and claimed you as His own. He made you holy and set you apart from the world. He made you His heir, joining you to the eternal inheritance won for you by your Savior.
No matter what the devil and the world plot against you, no matter what harm they might do to you, you belong to the LORD. He loves you perfectly. He knows your struggles and suffering. He gives you His strength and courage through His Word and Sacraments. And He promises ultimate deliverance—safe passage to the Promised Land. In his great Easter hymn, Martin Luther puts these thoughts together:
Here the true Paschal Lamb we see, / Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree— / So strong His love—to save us.
See, His blood doth mark our door; / Faith points to it, death passes o’er,
And Satan cannot harm us. / Alleluia! (ELH 343, v. 5)
Your Baptism was the beginning of your new life in Christ. It set you on a different path than you were on before. Baptism lets you put behind you the desires and sins that enslaved you. It points you forward in hope to a better place, a better day, a better home. That’s exactly what the Passover was for the people of Israel. In fact, God made their deliverance from slavery in Egypt the beginning of a new calendar (Exo. 12:2). They were to celebrate the Passover at the beginning of this new year every year, in order to remember and rejoice in the grace of God they continued to receive.
This is why it is good for you to remember the date of your Baptism and give thanks for it each year—and not just annually, but even daily. The Catechism teaches that you return to your Baptism by daily contrition and repentance, and that a new man daily comes forth and arises to live before God in righteousness and purity (“The Meaning of Baptism”). You are baptized into Christ. It is your enduring identity before God. It is the eternal mark He put on you that He can see just as clearly as He saw the blood on the doorposts.
The Israelites could not see what the future held after they had made their Passover preparations. We also at Baptism cannot see all the burdens and blessings that will come along the way in our journey. But we know who is with us—the LORD who made heaven and earth and everything in them, the LORD who delivered His people Israel from slavery, the LORD who conquered sin, devil, and death for every sinner!
As we go forward, He speaks His comforting promises to us. He reminds us who we are in Him, who He made us to be through Holy Baptism. And in the new Supper instituted with the unleavened bread and wine of the Passover meal, He feeds us with His holy body and blood. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, including your sin and mine. We are saved by His blood.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Sacrificial Lamb” by Josefa de Ayala, 1630-1684)
Septuagesima Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Genesis 50:15-21
In Christ Jesus, who came down from His heavenly throne to save us by grace, and grace alone (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #226, v. 4), dear fellow redeemed:
Do you remember the dreams that the teenage Joseph had? The sheaves of his brothers bowing down to his sheaf in the field? And then the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowing down to him? His brothers hated him for this (Gen. 37:8). Those dreams were on their minds when they saw Joseph coming toward them in the field. “Here comes this dreamer,” they said. “Come now, let us kill him” (37:19-20). But instead they decided to sell him… as a slave.
By the time of today’s reading, more than thirty years had passed. For seventeen of those, Joseph’s brothers had lived peacefully in Egypt under Joseph’s protection and care. But now their father Jacob was dead. What might Joseph do to them now, and who would stop him if he decided to take revenge? They had sold him for twenty shekels of silver. How much do you think they would have given to undo what they had done?
A clean conscience is a priceless thing to have. You know that because of what a tremendous burden a guilty conscience is. Think back to when you were a child. At some point, you probably took something you weren’t supposed to. Maybe it was a cookie or some treat your parents told you not to take. You took it and ate it, but it didn’t bring you the satisfaction you expected. In fact, it didn’t take long before you wondered why you ever took it in the first place and wished you could go back and change your actions.
That is true of so many of our sins. When faced with a temptation, we tell ourselves it is no big deal. “I can have this, or do this. No one will find out. I can get away with it.” But then it eats away at us. We can’t get it out of our mind. We feel it sticking to us like mud or hanging around our neck like heavy chains. We expect that everyone is going to find out. And we almost hope they do because then we can stop trying to hide it. Then we can take the consequences and move on.
But there is also danger in being found out. If somebody you have to answer to finds out what you have done, you can’t control how they respond. You don’t know how bad your punishment will be. You don’t know how much you could lose, but you always imagine the worst. That’s what Joseph’s brothers did. They saw how much power Joseph had. They imagined how he might sell them as slaves like they sold him. Or throw them in prison and make their wives and children slaves.
So they decided to appeal to the words of their father. If Joseph did not respect them, he certainly respected their father. They conveyed the command from Jacob that Joseph forgive his brothers. Then they asked him to consider their common faith in God and forgive them. Finally, they bowed down before him (just like Joseph’s dreams indicated) and said, “Behold, we are your servants. We are at your mercy.”
And they were. We don’t know if Joseph ever imagined this day. I suspect he did when he was treated roughly and sold in Egypt, and when he wiled away the hours in prison. No doubt the devil tempted him to hate his brothers who dealt so severely with him and tore him away from his home and family. You also know what it is to be wronged. Maybe someone attacked you for no good reason. Maybe someone betrayed your trust. Maybe someone lied to you and hurt you deeply.
It hurt so badly that you may have wanted them to feel that pain, so they would understand what they had done. Then they couldn’t try to pass it off as no big deal, or that they didn’t mean anything by it, or you should just forget about it. No, you wanted them to know how much it hurt you. And you can dwell on that and hold on to that bitterness and anger, so that it consumes you and grows much bigger than the original offense.
Now in Joseph’s case, it was a terrible offense. Who can imagine selling off a family member to an unknown fate? This gnawed at his brothers. They could not forget. They probably imagined Joseph being treated as less than human in Egypt and maybe even being killed and left in some unmarked grave. They did that to him. Like Cain who killed his brother Abel, they let their anger overcome them. And now they had to live with what they had done. But it was too much for them to bear. The burden of guilt overwhelmed them.
You know what this burden feels like because each of us has done things we regret, that we wish we could go back and change and fix. Knowing what a guilty conscience feels like is one reason why you should be ready to forgive those who have sinned against you. You know what a gift forgiveness is. You receive it each week in church after confessing your sins to God. You hear these words which have the power of God behind them, “By the authority of God and of my holy office I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
What a relief it is to know that every sin is forgiven by God! He holds none of them against you, even if you have fallen into the same sin again and again. He forgives you because Jesus paid the penalty for all sin on the cross. Even if someone you have sinned against tells you that he or she will never forgive you, God still forgives you. He has every right to hold your sins against you since you broke His holy Law, but He refuses to do this. The blood of His Son was sufficient to cleanse you of all your sins (1Jo. 1:7).
His blood was also sufficient to cleanse others of the sins they have committed against you. Sure, Joseph had the power to harm his brothers. But then he would have sinned just as they had. “Do not fear,” he said, “for am I in the place of God?” In the same way, you may have the power to harm someone, but are you in the place of God? The inspired letter to the Colossians says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (3:12-13).
We are not called to take revenge. We are called to be toward others as Jesus is toward us. We are called to be gracious. If we are saved by grace, by God’s undeserved love, then that is what we want to pass on to our neighbors. This is not a lesson we learn from the world. We live in a culture of political retribution, of diss tracks that win the highest music awards, of bad behavior that gets publicly outed but never publicly forgiven.
The way of Christ is counterintuitive. It is countercultural. It does not seek to “get what’s mine.” It seeks to give. That is what Jesus did. He came to give His perfect life in the place of every sinful one. He came to undo every wrong by His life of righteousness. He came to wipe away every transgression, every wrong, every hateful and hurtful action.
He came to free the world and every human heart from the desire to wound as we have been wounded, the desire to treat others the way they have treated us, the desire to get the payment we demand for the wrongs that were done to us. The revenge game has no winners, only losers. Joseph could have taken revenge on his brothers. But he did the bigger thing instead. He forgave.
He also acknowledged that the goodness of God was greater and stronger than their wicked intentions. He said, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” God turning evil into good does not justify evil, as though we should sin however we want, since God will work good out of it. Joseph’s brothers weren’t about to pat themselves on the back for being the ones to get their brother in Egypt to carry out this good work.
But it is comforting to know that God does this redemptive work, that He can and does turn our times of greatest pain and suffering into blessings. Maybe we will never clearly recognize those blessings, but we can trust that God will bring them about somehow. We know that even though we have meant evil against God in our sins, He turned everything for our good. He sent His Son to redeem us, so that we do not have to fear His wrath and punishment but rest in His unchanging grace.
Our hymn of the month teaches this, that we are saved by God’s free and boundless grace. He will not punish us eternally for our sins, no matter how terrible those sins were or how heavily they have weighed on our conscience. As stanza eight of the hymn says:
By grace to timid hearts that tremble,
In tribulation’s furnace tried—
By grace, despite all fear and trouble,
The Father’s heart is open wide.
Where could I help and strength secure
If grace were not my anchor sure? (ELH #226)
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Crucifixion, Seen from the Cross,” by James Tissot, c. 1890)
The Baptism of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Peter 3:18-22
In Christ Jesus, who was baptized into our sin, so we would be baptized into His righteousness, dear fellow redeemed:
The ark that Noah built was a very big boat! It was longer than a football field and about as tall as football goalposts from the ground to the tip of the posts. (If you have visited the “Ark Encounter” in Kentucky, you have gotten a sense at how big the ark probably was.) It was large enough to hold Noah and his family, two of every kind of animal, and the food and provisions they needed for the time they spent on the ark, which totaled about a year.
When the waters began to recede after completely covering the whole earth, Genesis 8 says that “the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (v. 4). Where exactly that is has been the focus of a good deal of research and a lot of expeditions that have failed to produce any evidence of the ark. As neat as it would be to find a big boat buried in the ice on top of some mountain, I think it would be better if Noah’s ark is never found. Why? Mainly for these two reasons: First, we don’t need physical evidence of the ark to prove that what the Bible says is true. And second, people would be tempted to view the ark as a sacred relic that possessed some kind of holy power.
This has happened all through human history. Churches around the world have tiny bones of the apostles and famous saints on display, which supposedly give spiritual benefits to those who visit them. Many places display pieces of Jesus’ cross (so many pieces said Luther in his day, that they could build a church with them!). Even in Old Testament times, the godly king Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent that Moses had made at God’s command some seven hundred years earlier, because the Israelites were worshiping it (2Ki. 18:4).
The ark that God told Noah to build served its purpose. It brought His chosen people safely through water. Our churches have a sort of connection to the ark. The main part of the church where all of you sit is called the “nave.” It comes from the Latin word navis, which means “ship.” The Youth Convention theme some years back was semper in navi—“always in the ship.”
You are brought into the ship of the Church through water. You became a member of the holy Christian Church through the water and Word of Holy Baptism. This is what today’s reading from St. Peter’s First Epistle describes. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he ties together the salvation of Noah’s family through water, with your salvation through water.
Where you were baptized is not the most important thing, just as where the ark is now is not important. You can imagine how a family could attach too much importance to a church building or to a particular font, where parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were baptized, so that those things become more important than the power and promises of God through His Word.
It is not where you were baptized that is so important, but how you were baptized. If you were baptized with water “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mat. 28:19), you received all the magnificent gifts of God in Christ. What gifts are those? Today’s reading says that Baptism is not “a removal of dirt from the body.” It is not about outward cleansing. You know as well as I do how quickly children get dirty again after they have been washed.
We can see the physical part of Baptism—the application of water. But we can’t see the spiritual part, which is “an appeal to God for a good conscience.” That is an interesting description of what Baptism does. Jesus instituted Baptism as an appeal for God the Father to give the baptized what Jesus won. This is something like a super rich person sharing his bank account information and telling you to go ahead and take it all!
Baptism gives you the goods—the best goods. It is an appeal for God to cleanse your guilty conscience and give you a good conscience. But why should He do that for you? Today’s reading says why: “Baptism… now saves you… as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” We make the claim that Baptism saves, and we have confidence that Baptism saves, because Jesus rose from the dead.
First, He “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God.” He had to exchange His righteous life for our sinful lives and die in our place to pay for those sins. Without the shedding of His holy blood to atone for our sins, we would still have to answer for them. We would have to answer for every unholy thought, every mean word, every un-Christian action. But He did shed His blood to reconcile us with God.
God the Father showed that His Son’s sacrifice was sufficient for us by raising Him from the dead. Jesus came back to life on the third day, and before anything else, He descended into hell. He did not go there to suffer. His suffering was already complete, as He said on the cross, “It is finished.” Today’s reading says that “He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” who “formerly did not obey.” Some have speculated that Jesus went to free the spirits from hell. But that would be inconsistent with the rest of the Bible, which says that there is no escape, no coming back, for the souls in hell.
About as much as we can say is that Jesus descended into hell to proclaim His victory over sin, devil, and death. Those “spirits in prison” now knew exactly who and what it was they had rejected, “when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared.” They ignored Noah’s preaching. They laughed at Noah’s ark. And they were all consumed by the waters of the flood and condemned to everlasting torment.
After His descent into hell, Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to many of His disciples. In one of those meetings, He told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mat. 28:18-20a). Jesus was using His authority as the Conqueror of sin and death to send out His disciples to distribute His gifts.
Jesus still has that authority, and He still calls servants in the Church to distribute His gifts. Where His Word is purely preached and His Sacraments are rightly administered, Jesus promises to be present with His grace. He told those first disciples, and all the Church who would follow them, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (v. 20b).
Jesus is here now, right here, today. He is here to bless you and comfort you with His gifts. Are you worthy of His presence? Are you worthy to have Him come to you? If your thought is “yes,” because you have been pretty good, that is pride. The proud have no need for a Savior, because they think they are fine on their own.
If your thought is “no, I am not worthy,” that could lead to despair. You might think about the harsh words you said to the people closest to you, the harm you have done to them. You might think of the bad choices you made, the things you have done in secret that burn your conscience, things you wish you could take back. You might think of how selfish you have been, how weak in faith, how you have ignored the needs of your neighbor.
In that state of mind, you might forget something very important, which is that you are baptized! As unworthy as you may feel, and as much as you have fallen short of the glory of God, He chose you. He sent His only Son for you. When He looks at you, all He can see is the righteousness of His Son that covers you. He sees the blood of His Son that cleansed you of all sin.
These gifts were poured over you at your Baptism, and they remain yours by faith in Jesus. You stay in your Baptism by repenting of your sins, even the ones you are stuck in, day after day. You hand your sins over to the Father and cry, “Forgive me, Lord! I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mar. 9:24). And He does forgive you, every day. As He said to His Son on His Baptism day, so He says to you today, “You are My beloved Son, with you I am well pleased” (Mar. 1:11).
Like the flood that washed away the wicked and lifted Noah and his family to safety, your Baptism has done that for you—washed away your sin and brought you salvation from God. The hymn the children just sang says it so well, “Sins, disturb my soul no longer; / I am baptized into Christ. / I have comfort even stronger: / Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice. / Should a guilty conscience seize me / Since my Baptism did release me / In a dear forgiving flood, / Sprinkling me with Jesus’ blood?” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 246, v. 2).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from stained glass at Saude Lutheran Church)
Sexagesima Sunday – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. Luke 8:4-15
In Christ Jesus, who never gives up on us, dear fellow redeemed:
When we hear the parable of the sower, we can easily focus on how each type of bad ground was described and wonder, “Well, what did the sower think was going to happen?” If you throw seed onto a path, of course it isn’t going to take root, but be trampled and devoured by birds. If you throw seed onto rocks, of course it isn’t going to have a deep enough root to get the moisture it needs to grow. If you throw seed among thorns, of course the thorns will grow up with the seed and choke it. But the picture that Jesus is using in this parable actually describes things that the people at that time would be familiar with.
Before the farmers did any sowing, the field was first plowed to break up the soil. After the plowing was done, the entire field would appear to be good soil, but that was not the case. Some parts of the field only had a thin layer of soil on the top with a layer of rock beneath it. Some parts of the field ended up growing thorny weeds along with the seed, weeds that can pop up anywhere no matter how much a person tries to protect their crops from them. Plus, as a sower threw his seed out onto the field, some of the seed would undoubtedly fall on the paths of soil that were packed down from people walking on them.
Jesus uses these relatable struggles of farming to teach us that God generously sows the seed of his Word in every type of heart, not just the hearts that are the most ideal, because God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). But not everyone who receives his Word is saved. Some people hear the Word, but their hearts are hard like the packed down soil of a path that runs through a field. So, the Word doesn’t take root in their hearts and is plucked away by the devil. Some people hear the Word, and the Word fills them with joy. They appear to be strong Christians on the surface, but in reality, their faith is shallow, like a thin layer of soil on top of a layer of rock. Their faith is unable to get the nutrients it needs to stay alive, so when they are faced with hard times, they fall away. Some people hear the Word and receive it in faith, but the cares, riches, and pleasures that surround them like thorny weeds choke their faith and kill it. And some people hear the Word and hold on to it. Their hearts are repentant and, through their trust in God, they are able to patiently endure what destroyed the faith of the others and produce a crop that shows the fruit of their faith.
Of these four types of soil, which soil are you? That seems like a silly question. Of course you’re the good soil. You know that you’re a sinner and are repentant of your sins, you put your trust in God, and you do plenty of good things throughout your life that prove that your faith has produced a plentiful crop. But this parable is not just a warning to those who have rejected the Word, fallen from faith, or are in danger of losing their faith. This parable is also a warning to all of us who think that we are secure in our faith. As the apostle Paul says, “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).
There are many dangers that could result from us thinking that we are secure in our faith. One of those dangers is thinking that we don’t need to worry about sin because God forgives us all our sins anyway. Sin is a very serious thing, and if we think that God will forgive our sins whether they bother us or not, then we could end up no longer viewing sin as the serious thing that it is. Not taking sin seriously could also lead to us living in sin without feeling the need to repent and turn to Jesus for forgiveness. And if we don’t think that we need forgiveness for our sins, then we could think that we don’t need Jesus and lose our faith. What starts off as us not taking sin seriously could end up with us having hardened hearts, and the devil will have an opportunity to pluck the Word away from us.
There are times when we all become comfortable in certain sins. But when that happens to you, God doesn’t leave you alone to see if you’ll pull through on our own. If he did that, then your hearts would become hardened for sure. Instead, he gets to work on you, plowing the field of your heart to break up its hard soil. Through his Word, he shows you the seriousness of your sin, and that you deserve eternal death in hell. Then, through that same Word, he gives you the comfort of the gospel, showing you that Jesus paid the price for even your most serious and repeated sins by his death on the cross, so that you will not die, but live forever with him in heaven. Because of the sacrifice that Jesus made for you, you are God’s own dear child, and he will make sure that the devil cannot pluck you out of his hand.
But that is not the only danger to our faith. There is also a danger for us to feel secure enough in our faith that we don’t think that we need to regularly remain in the Word. After all, we’ve heard these accounts countless times and can even recite some of them by heart. We know the basic truths of Scripture: that we are all sinners, and that Jesus died for our sins. This could cause us to think that we don’t need to keep reading the Word or coming to hear the Word, because we think that we already know everything. But, if we don’t keep coming back to the Word, then our faith won’t be able to receive the nutrients that it needs to stay alive. It will become shallow, like the thin layer of soil on top of the layer of rock. And if we have a shallow faith when we enter a time of testing, then we are in trouble.
There are many times throughout our lives when God allows us to enter a time of testing. These times of testing can be quite hard on us. There are times when work can be difficult due to people we are interacting with or due to the demands of our work that seem unattainable. There are times when we think that we are doing great at our tasks or with our relationships, and then suddenly, we mess up in a way that we don’t think we’ll be able to recover from. There are times when our loved ones fall ill and begin to suffer terribly, or their lives are taken from us in tragic ways. No matter what our difficult times are, God promises to be with us and help us through them. He gives us this comfort through his Word. But if we have not kept our faith nourished though his Word, then where are we going to get that comfort from? As a result, the burden of our troubles could appear to be too much for us, and we could end up falling away from the faith, wondering why God allowed this to happen to us.
If your faith is starting to get shallow because you are not remaining in the Word, God takes appropriate measures to help you. He breaks up the rock beneath your shallow faith and works through his Word to fill that space with more faith, so that the Word can take root in your heart and thrive. Often, he works through times of testing to accomplish this, reminding you of how much you need him and of how much he has done for you, including giving up his own life for you. By dying on the cross, Jesus dealt with your biggest problems of all: sin and death. And if God loved you enough to die for you, then surely, he also loves you enough to keep his promise to always be with you and bear your burdens in your time of need. When God turns you back to his comforting Word, the joy you feel is no longer a shallow joy that can easily be destroyed, but a joy that comes from the deepest parts of your heart.
The last danger to our faith is the distractions that the world surrounds us with. These distractions can appear to be harmless. After all, what’s wrong with earning a little extra money, or buying some items that we’ve always wanted, or going to sporting events and other fun places? There is nothing wrong with these things in and of themselves, but when those things start to become more important to us than God, then we have a problem. What starts as just wanting to earn a little extra money could turn into spending as much time working as possible, even if it means we don’t have time to gather around the Word anymore. What starts as just wanting a few items could turn into us obsessing over those items and wanting to spend all of our time making use of them rather than spending that time in the Word. What starts out as us wanting to go to a few fun events and places could turn into us going to them whenever we can, even if it means that we have to sacrifice gathering around the Word. When the distractions of this world overtake us, they can choke our faith out and kill it, like seeds growing up surrounded by thorny weeds.
When you are in danger of having your faith choked out by the distractions of this world, God comes to you to remove those distractions, like a farmer pulling weeds. He can remove these distractions in many different ways, whether it’s by helping you to realize that you need to distance yourself from them or by removing them from you by other means. It can be difficult for us to part from our distractions, but when we do, and God works in us to make our faith grow free of those distractions that were choking us, we realize just how little we actually needed them. We also realize how much we need the blessings that Jesus won for us on the cross that God brings to us through his Word: the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The work that Jesus did to earn you these blessings is more important than any work you could ever do. These blessings that Jesus purchased for you on the cross are more valuable than anything you could ever purchase. The event of Jesus’ suffering and death is a more significant event than anything you could ever attend. And thanks to the work that God does on your hearts through his Word, you realize just how much greater Jesus and the blessings that he won for you are than the distractions of this world.
When a farmer plants his seed, he doesn’t leave it unattended. He keeps coming back to make sure that it’s healthy and growing, and if he needs to work the ground some more to protect his crop, he will. God doesn’t leave you unattended either. He has planted his Word in your hearts and is constantly making sure that your hearts remain fertile soil for his Word. Even when your hearts are not the ideal ground for the Word to grow in, God never gives up on you and is always working the soil of your hearts to make sure that his Word can take root in your hearts and grow. Because of God, your faith is protected and taken care of. Because of God, you know that the blessings that Jesus won for you on the cross are yours.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Hortus Diliciarum, a book compiled by Herrad of Landsberg in the 12th century)
Septuagesima Sunday – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5
In Christ Jesus, who calls us to take up our cross and follow after Him, running the race of faith, until by His grace He brings us across the finish line, dear fellow redeemed:
In today’s reading, the apostle Paul brings in some history of God’s chosen people Israel. They had multiplied greatly over their more than four hundred years in Egypt. Over the course of that time, they had gone from being honored guests in the land to being enslaved. Now God had brought them out of slavery, and the people followed Moses out of Egypt and into the wilderness.
As they traveled, “the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light” (Exo. 13:21). This made it abundantly clear to them that the LORD was with them. Then they came up to the Red Sea. Everything seemed to be going well until they saw the Egyptian army coming toward them in full force. There was nowhere to run or hide.
The people immediately complained to Moses that they would have rather stayed in slavery than die in the wilderness. Moses reassured them that the LORD who brought them out of Egypt would guard and keep them. He said, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Exo. 14:13-14).
What happened next? The LORD told Moses to stretch his staff over the sea to divide it, so the people could cross over on dry ground. While a wind divided the sea that night, the LORD moved His pillar of cloud and fire between His people Israel and the Egyptian army to protect His people. Then the Israelites walked through the sea with water on each side of them. Once the Israelites reached the other side, God allowed the Egyptian army to chase after them, and when they did, He caused the water to crash down and destroy them.
As the people moved forward through the wilderness, the LORD provided them manna for bread and quail from the sky for meat. In desolate places with no water, He even caused water to spill out of a rock! He provided for and blessed His people every step of the way. Paul said that the One who blessed them in these ways was Christ, the eternal Son of God.
How could the people doubt God’s love for them after all He had done? Why would they look anywhere else for guidance and help? But they did. Paul states the sobering truth, “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” Where did they go wrong? Paul describes those things, too, just after today’s reading. He said that they became idolaters, chasing after the riches and pleasures of the world (1Co. 10:7). They indulged in sexual immorality, ignoring God’s institution of marriage, with twenty-three thousand falling in a single day (v. 8). They put Christ to the test by their complaining, grumbling, and rejection of His promises (vv. 9-10).
So why was Paul compelled to give this history lesson? “Now these things took place as examples for us,” he wrote; “they were written down for our instruction” (vv. 6,11). Paul was writing to a Christian congregation in Corinth that was struggling with the same temptations to idolatry, sexual immorality, and unfaithfulness. And we know that the same temptations face us now in our time. As the Preacher in Ecclesiastes says, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9).
But are we willing to learn from the past? Are we willing to learn from what God has recorded in the Scriptures? Or do we take comfort in thinking that we’re really no worse than the people who went before us, and we are probably a little bit better? The reason that Paul used the language he did—“all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink”—was to tell us that when we see the Israelites, we should see ourselves.
We are baptized in Christ, and we partake of the food and drink of His body and blood. Would we give up all these blessings and embrace our sin instead, like the Israelites did? The answer of all of us here would be, “Absolutely not! We wouldn’t give up what Jesus has done for us for anything in the world!”
But then Paul would challenge us: “Do your words and actions prove this priority? Do you run the course of this life with your eyes always on the prize? Do you exercise self-control and discipline with your body, so that things like sexual sin, drunkenness, and gluttony will not disqualify you in other people’s estimation?” Those are hard questions. But they underscore an important point: The Christian faith is not for the lazy, for the self-secure, for the prideful, or for those who are just looking for a nice community organization.
Being a Christian requires sacrifice. It means sacrificing our sinful desires and selfish plans out of love for God and our neighbor. It means not looking for approval from the world. It means enduring criticism and possibly persecution for holding to the truth. It means sacrificing our pride, both acknowledging and admitting our many sins, for which we deserve God’s wrath and punishment.
When we take these things to heart, we can’t help but think we haven’t run the race so well. Our mind and heart cleansed in the waters of Baptism have often been employed in unholy pursuits. Our mouth which has held the holy body and blood of Jesus has often been used for hurtful words, gossip, and lies. When we have managed some self-discipline and self-control, then it was easy for us to look down on other Christians who were not as disciplined. Then we were like the workers in the vineyard who took their eyes off the promise, and instead focused on the weaknesses and inadequacies of the workers around them.
And yet, the race hasn’t ended. Our time isn’t up. The Master of the vineyard hasn’t called us forward to receive our wages. We are still here. We are still running. The call to repentance is a call for today and every day. But not just repentance. We are also called to faith in God’s grace. He knows who He has working for Him. He knows us far better than an employer knows his employees, or than a parent knows his child. He knows the stains on our past, and the weaknesses that hinder us from giving our all for Him. And He still says (and tells us again and again), “I forgive you.”
This is how the psalmist describes His enduring grace toward us: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psa. 103:10-12). That means our sin and guilt do not hold us back or weigh us down as we run the race we are called to run and carry out the work we are called to do. Those burdens have been lifted off our shoulders by our merciful God.
But our sin and guilt were not just set aside, thrown in the dumpster, or stuffed in a box in God’s garage. Our sin and guilt were put on God’s only Son. They were given over to Him for Him to carry and to take all the way across the finish line. That was a hard race to run, harder than we can imagine. Though He was perfect and did no wrong, He was ignored by the selfish, rejected by the prideful, and abused by the wicked. All the jealousy, all the anger and hatred, all the anguish and pain of the world were taken out on Jesus, as though He were the problem and not us sinners.
And He willingly went forward, carrying all of our sin, suffering unjustly. He kept His eyes on the prize. But what could He possibly gain by His innocent suffering and death? The prize He had His eyes on was your salvation. He ran that terrible race and did that awful work of suffering for you. The author of Hebrews writes that “for the joy that was set before him—the joy of redeeming sinners—[he] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:2).
Because He has won the victory for us over sin and death, the same author writes, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus” (vv. 1-2a). Where do we find our motivation, our strength to go forward and run the race? We find it in Christ, the same Christ who blessed the wandering people of Israel with His protection and care, the same Christ who blessed the Corinthian congregation with His presence in Word and Sacrament, the same Christ who still visits us now with His blessings of grace.
He does not want us to be lost. He does not want us to be overcome by our sin and overthrown in the wilderness of this world. He wants us to endure through the temptations and trials of this life and to finish our race in faith. He does not leave us to run the race alone. Like the pillar of cloud and fire, He protects us on all sides and leads us forward. He comes beside us encouraging and comforting us through His Word when the race is most difficult, and He is ready to receive us into His eternal kingdom when our race in this life comes to an end.
We keep our eyes on Him. And even when our focus is not as sharp as it should be, He is always looking with mercy upon us. The gracious countenance of the LORD is always turned toward you, to bless you and keep you, to shine upon you, and to give you peace.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Jesus Traveling” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
The Baptism of Our Lord – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 3:13-17
In Christ Jesus, who “came by water and blood,” (1Jo. 5:6), who came to fulfill all righteousness and win our salvation from His baptism to His death on the cross, dear fellow redeemed:
What do you want to be when you grow up? If you are not asking that question now, you probably did at one time. Children and adolescents spend a lot of time thinking about that question. What am I supposed to do with my life? What will my future hold? Typically we start with grand ideas. We want to be just like the famous trailblazers and champions we admire. But as we get older, our plans become more realistic, even if our life doesn’t go in the direction we expect.
Tied up in our plans for the future is the question about where we fit in the world. We want to be noticed. We want to be liked. We want to be successful. We want others to think we are special. And that’s a lot of pressure. A report released last week by the CDC said that anxiety and depression are on the rise among teenagers, and it’s way up among teenage girls. Part of the reason for this increase has to do with the pressure that teenagers feel in matters of their sexuality.
Our current culture does not provide a healthy environment for children to mature and grow. It expects them to make life-changing decisions about themselves and their bodies when they aren’t ready to make those decisions. How do we help them with the burdens they carry? How do we settle our own anxious thoughts about our purpose in life and our future?
Today’s reading provides good direction for us. The events happened at a time when hardly anyone knew who Jesus was. His neighbors in Nazareth thought of Him as a kind and intelligent young man. But they didn’t exactly expect Him to be a world-changer. He was the son of Joseph and Mary, and He was probably destined for a very anonymous life (Mat. 13:55).
But that isn’t what John the Baptizer thought. When Jesus made His way to the Jordan River where John was preaching and baptizing, John said something surprising, “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” How did John know who Jesus was? We don’t know. What we know is that John was called to prepare the way for the Messiah. And he said that “for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel” (Joh. 1:31).
John and Jesus were also cousins, so it is possible they grew up around each other, and John could see how good and upright Jesus was. Whatever impressions John had about Jesus would now become set in stone. “Let it be so now,” said Jesus, “for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” So John baptized Him.
As soon as Jesus stepped down into the river and had water poured over Him, you and I were assured of a very bright, a very beautiful future. How can that be? When Jesus stepped into the water, He didn’t go for Himself. We can see why John questioned Jesus’ intent to be baptized. John clearly proclaimed that his baptism was for sinners. But what sins did Jesus have to confess?
Jesus had no sins of His own, but He had all of yours and mine. This was no ordinary man who showed up at the river. This was the eternal Son of God clothed in our flesh. Whatever God did in the flesh should have our very close attention. He didn’t go to the Jordan to pass the time. Everything He did had purpose. His baptism was not a small detail in His life. It was the public beginning of His work of salvation. It was His anointing as the Savior of the world.
He stepped into the river “to fulfill all righteousness.” You can’t “fulfill all righteousness.” I can’t “fulfill all righteousness.” But Jesus could fulfill it for all of us. When He entered the water, He stepped in for you and me and every member of the human race. He was baptized to work a great exchange—your sin for His righteousness. He was baptized into your sin, so that you could be baptized into His righteousness.
In other words, His baptism in the Jordan is your future flashing before your eyes. And His journey from the Jordan to the cross and grave is your journey. What I mean is that you do not have to worry about the mark you will make on the world. You do not have to prove that you matter or that you are special. You do not have to create your own identity or determine your own fate. Jesus already addressed these concerns for you.
You can’t see what your future will hold, but you can see what Jesus’ future held. You see how the heavens were opened after His baptism and the Holy Spirit came down like a dove and rested on Him. You see how God the Father gave the stamp of approval to His Son by saying, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
You know how Jesus went on from there to the wilderness to be tempted, how He started teaching about the kingdom of God and healing the sick and the hurting, how His enemies made plans against Him, and eventually brought Him up on false charges before the governor Pontius Pilate. You see how Jesus willingly suffered, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter opening not His mouth. You see how He was nailed to the cross, cried out in anguish, died, and was buried.
That’s not exactly a future to aspire to. Do we really want to walk in those steps? Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mat. 16:24). That is the exact opposite of what we want to do. The world tells us to indulge ourselves—food, drink, entertainment, pleasure—and our own flesh wants it. Why should we fight these desires? Why do we have to take up a cross? Won’t that only lead to heartache and pain?
It is true that following after Jesus brings us trouble. He says the world will hate everyone who trusts in Him, because the world hated Him (Joh. 15:18-19). “In the world you will have tribulation” (Joh. 16:33), He says. But persecution and trouble are not all that our future holds. In fact, Jesus says that these things only last “a little while.”
Jesus’ future did not end with His death and burial and neither will yours. Jesus came to life again on the third day. He undid death. He reversed the curse. Death no longer had dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). He rose from the dead, and He lives on in glory. That is your future. He won that victory for you.
And all of it starts at baptism. Baptism changed your future and your focus like nothing else in the world possibly could. It had a bigger impact on you than having all your hopes and dreams for this life come true, even more than winning the lottery or becoming the ruler of the whole world. Because at your baptism, Jesus officially made His righteousness, His accomplishments, and His eternal victory over death yours.
Jesus had your sins poured over Him at the Jordan River, so you would have His righteousness poured over you at the font. He was punished by the Father in your place, so you would be forgiven of all you have done wrong. He died, so that you would live. When you were baptized, the Holy Spirit came to rest on you and filled your heart with faith. When you were baptized, God the Father called you His “beloved,” with whom He is “well pleased.”
St. Paul explains that “We were buried therefore with [Christ Jesus] by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). At your baptism, you were set on a new course. The plan for your future was locked in. Your life gained an instant and clear purpose. Because the merciful God chose you. He adopted you as His own. He named you His child and heir with Jesus as your brother.
Everything Jesus earned for you from His baptism to His grave became yours, and it is still yours. No matter how much you have messed up, God has not taken His baptism away from you. All that Jesus did for you is still done. Your future in Him is still secure.
So for the young who feel the pressure of being everything the world says they should be, who think they need to prove their worth and show how special they are, who are tempted to compromise themselves and their beliefs in order to be accepted, we can tell them that God loves them perfectly. He sees the temptations they have to face, how difficult their life is, and He promises that He will never leave them alone. He sent His Son to redeem their life with His, He brought them to the font to receive His blessings and give them new life, and He still meets them in their times of sadness and pain to help and strengthen them by His Word and Sacrament.
That is the promise and comfort that all of us need whether we are looking forward with anxiety or backward with regret. Jesus was baptized for you, to fulfill all righteousness for you. He went to the cross for you and rose again for you. Because of His work, your future is bright. You are baptized into Him. You believe in Him. And “[w]hoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mar. 16:16).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from 1895 painting by José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior)
Sexagesima Sunday – Vicar Anderson sermon
Text: St. Luke 8:4-15
In Christ Jesus, who sows the Seed of the Word of God for all to hear, sowing forgiveness and grace in you, dear fellow redeemed:
Living in Iowa, there is one part of the scenery that I have gotten used too. The land is flat, and since it is flat, there will be corn. Miles and miles of corn. Jesus’ parable is very straight forward and knowing these congregations, you should hear Christ speaking directly to you. This message is very fitting. You know what it takes to get that corn to grow. The field has to be tilled. The rocks have to be picked out of the field and thrown to the side. The field has to be treated so that the weeds don’t attack and kill the baby corn stalk. Lastly, you pray to God for rain and look expectantly for it to grow. Jesus has designed this parable for you. Now as you are the sowers of your fields, in our text we see Jesus, the sower of the Word. Jesus warns us how the Word is under threat. He teaches that this is not just a parable of categories and where you fit in. Jesus is teaching us the truth that we can’t grow His Word on our own. We have to rely on him.
Jesus uses imagery that easily sticks in our minds. The parallels are very easy to spot. Pesky birds fly down and eat the seeds on the road. The Devil is a hunting lion stalking his prey and ready to strike. He is constantly working to make those who hear the Word reject it. The seed is eaten with almost no chance for it to ever come back. The seed can be planted multiple times and a person can reject it every time. Where the field’s edge sits, the rocks are thrown. The Word is believed and quickly forgotten. Many people love how the Word can be refreshing and comforting. But when the troubles and absolute hard times put us on our knees, those refreshing words can be tossed aside because what can they do to help me now?
Where weed killer isn’t used, the thorns grow. When God’s Word isn’t active, then faith is choked out. Jesus shows the crowd how easily the pleasures and riches of world can be those temptations that make faith wither. They saw the life He was living, yet they looked at all of their possessions and they did not want to give them up. The good fruit that comes from the Word is twisted into fruit selfishly used for oneself.
Did you hear yourself in any of those categories? A misconception of this text is to think that this text only applies to the world and not to those who believe. Most of the time if not all of the time we will consider ourselves in that field, holding onto the Word and yielding a hundredfold. A key verse to think about is when Jesus called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” How often do we let the Word of God go in one ear and out the other ear? We hear; honor your parents, honor authority, don’t covet, don’t look at someone with lust, whoever hates his brother is a murderer. When we sin, we are rejecting God’s Word and Satan lies in wait.
Jesus tells his disciples that, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ Jesus has given us the understanding of this parable. But like the unbelievers, who can harden their hearts again and again, we also can harden our hearts. We cave to the pressures of the world and fail to live our Christian lives. We sin often which puts us under intense scrutiny. The more that we behave like the unbelievers do, the more we let God’s Word drift away.
When we are not listening to God’s Word, our faith will not grow. And if we set aside the Word long enough, our faith will die out. God says to rely on him, yet the pleasure of this life, the pleasures of our sins make us feel so good. It might not even be the pleasures of life either. We might ignore the comfort that Word brings in the hardest times in our lives. The budget might be tight, we begin to worry that God is not providing for us. Just because we have ears, doesn’t mean that we actually hear and learn. As we get caught up in our sins and problems, Jesus’ parable does point to a solution. The question to be answered is, why is Jesus so concerned that we listen to what He says? Why should we listen?
The reason that Jesus is so concerned about us listening to Him is because He is the one who is sowing the seed. “God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). The truth is taught to us in the Word of God. The Word of God is a Means of Grace. It brings forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. The Word shows us that Christ is the one who saves us. It teaches how He died on the cross, taking away our sins, and rising from the dead. Why should we listen? This is how Christ comes to us. He comes to us directly in His Word. He doesn’t hide himself. This is where we find understanding. It’s not in what the world has to offer. We find it in the Word.
With your ears you hear that the Word of God is powerful and effective because it is how Jesus comes to you. Your sins are many and there are many times that you have failed to listen to God’s Word. You can’t grow the seed, but when you acknowledge that you have sinned against God, it is Jesus’ Words that you hear when the pastor says to you “I forgive you all your sins.” That word of absolution works powerfully within you. Jesus sows His forgiveness and grace in you. He takes and not only plants the seed, He waters it and He makes it grow. The Word brings you assurance. Your sins are not attached to you.
As you grow in the Word, it provides you with strength and comfort when the temptations come and the thorns grow. This is how you know that you are in the good soil. Jesus says, “as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” Jesus planted His Word in you and made your heart into good soil.
Holding fast to the Word of God, the honest and good heart is revealed. It is nurtured by Christ. We know that by nature our hearts are sinful. The heart is against God all the time and knows can’t rely on itself. But Christ comes to our hearts through the Word and dwells in us. With growing and patience in God’s Word, Jesus produces fruit in us, fruit that is shared with those around us.
Jesus teaches with this parable that the Word is not going out only to believers. After hearing God’s Word, and hearing how plainly the truth is taught, some people will still reject it. This is a sad truth and an all too familiar one. But knowing that the truth is rejected does not stop us from sharing it. We want people to hear how their salvation has been won. The Gospel has the power to change hearts. The Law reveals that we are fallen people. We needed to be redeemed. The Gospel proclaims the truth, that we are saved by faith alone. The Word brings us comfort and joy as we continue to grow in it.
As the Word works, we see how powerful it is. The Word is powerful through the working of the Holy Spirit. This is what we confess in the third article of the Apostle’s Creed. We can’t increase our faith on our own. It is the Holy Spirit who calls us by the Gospel. He opens our ears so that we hear the saving message. He is the reason we keep our faith. Not only does He keep us in the true faith through the preaching of the Word but He keeps the whole Christian Church on earth with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. The Word is working throughout our entire life.
The spring and fall are the two seasons that are looked on with great anticipation. It is the time for seeds to be planted and for them to rise up for harvest. Thankfully the Word of God does not work in seasons. The Word continues to work when we are in it, exploring, and hearing all that God has done for us. As we learn and hear His Word, Jesus comes to us. The world wants a personal Christ. He doesn’t get more personal than in His Word. We hear the comfort that He brings us which helps us through our trials and temptations. The Word of God tells us what Christ has done. The Word keeps us strong in our faith. The Word grows our fruit, fruit that is meant for the world. A testimony of Christ’s constant love to the world that comes from hearing the Word of the Gospel. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Hortus Diliciarum, a book compiled by Herrad of Landsberg in the 12th century)